The chairman of the South African Post Office has hit back at parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) for questioning his commitment to the state-owned entity.
Simosezwe Lushaba was lambasted by Scopa for failing to attend the committee’s hearing on 8 March. The hearing came after the Post Office recorded a loss of R1,5bn for the 2015 financial year.
Scopa chairman Themba Godi said in the hearing that “this entity has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. It’s very embarrassing.”
But Lushaba has defended his non-appearance at the committee hearing.
“At no point did I insinuate or directly insult both the Scopa and parliament. The fact that of the matter is that I was never invited to the session of 8 March 2016 to begin with,” Lushaba said.
He said that Scopa’s letter to the Post Office invited CEO Mark Barnes and specified a limited number of officials.
“At no point did either the entire board, as accounting authority, any member of the board or I receive an invite to the Scopa session. But out of my own initiative, based on courtesy and respect, I encouraged the board to accompany the CEO to the scheduled session citing that the CEO was new at the Post Office,” said Lushaba.
Members of Scopa suggested that Lushaba was “conflicted” as the losses occurred under his watch as administrator.
“I was appointed by the minister [Siyabonga Cwele] as both administrator and chairperson of the board respectively and I have no reason to doubt that the minister based these on the relevant acts to avoid any ‘conflict of interest’ among other potential pitfalls,” said Lushaba.
“Conflict arises when one participates in a decision and/or transaction that s/he stands to benefit from. It is unclear what decision and/or transaction do I stand to benefit from,” he added.
Lushaba said that the Post Office accepted the auditor-general’s report into the “regression” in key performance areas of the entity.
The AG earlier this year found that irregular expenditure at the Post Office increased to R576,9m, while fruitless and wasteful expenditure grew to R95m.
“As a consequence, the management is currently implementing whatever remedial actions possible given the Post Office’s current context of limited cash as well as the high vacancy rate as a result of staff resignations,” said Lushaba.